All Hail the Power of Jesus Name

 

The National Anthem of the Christian Faith

 Edward Perronet lived in the 18^th century, born in England in 1726 and died in 1792.  He came to faith at an early age, due to the influence of his godly parents.  Entering the Anglican ministry, he became associated for many years with John and Charles Wesley.

Edward’s clever wit made him rather popular.  At one point, John Wesley put him on the spot and unexpectedly announced that his friend Edward was going to preach the next sermon.  Edward stood up and proclaimed that he was going to deliver the greatest sermon ever preached.  He opened his Bible to Matthew and read chapters 5, 6, and 7, The Sermon on the Mount, then sat back down.

In the November 1779 issue of The Gospel Magazine, edited by Rock of Ages author Augustus Toplady, a hymn appeared, the author labeled as ‘Anonymous’.  The first verse of the hymn was:

                All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!  Let angels prostrate fall;

                Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all!

Alongside the hymn appeared a separate poem – the first letter of each line spelled out the name “Edward Perronet”.

This 8-stanza hymn has been called “The National Anthem of the Christian Faith”.  It has been translated into almost every language on the globe where the Christian faith is represented, and is often used to this day in evangelistic work.

Reverend E.P. Scott, late in the 18^th century, traveled to India for purposes of evangelism.  He heard of a tribe of people who had never been reached with the Gospel.  He traveled alone to reach them and, nearing their territory, was suddenly confronted by a band of warriors from the tribe who all pointed their spears at his heart.  Fearing his life was at an end, he pulled out his violin, closed his eyes, and played the tune of this hymn, fully expecting to be martyred at any moment.  When he finished the song, he looked up and saw the warriors, many with tears in their eyes, and all spears lowered.  Reverend Scott had the privilege of spending two years with that tribe and seeing many of them come to faith.

Morgan, Robert J., Then Sings My Soul, Nelson Publishers, 2003.

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/perronets-national-anthem-of-christendom-11630316.html

https://www.christianmusicandhymns.com/2015/03/all-hail-power-of-jesus-name-edward.html

Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes was born in Massachusetts in 1753.  A black child, he was abandoned by his parents at about 5 months of age.  He was taken on by a church deacon in a common practice of indentured servitude – he would work for the man until age 21, in return for the deacon’s raising him.  Lemuel became, in all but name, a member of the family.  Lemuel was given the opportunity to attend school, a rare experience for blacks in his day.  He was fascinated especially with the study of theology, especially the contemporary works of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield.  One evening as a boy, while laying outside in a quiet moment, he saw the Aurora Borealis – the Northern Lights – and quietly gave his heart and life to Christ.

In the home in which he was raised, a common Saturday evening practice was to read a sermon out loud.  One evening, when Lemuel was asked to read, he read an especially rousing sermon.  When asked who wrote the sermon, he sheepishly replied that he had written it himself.  From that point on, he was often asked to proofread sermons or preach in a fill-in capacity.

At age 21 he was freed from his servitude and enlisted as a Minuteman in the Continental Army the day after the battles of Lexington and Concord.  He participated in the siege of Boston, and later became one of Ethan Allen’s famed “Green Mountain Boys” and participated in the conquest of Fort Ticonderoga in 1776.  Soon after this, he contracted Typhus, ending his military service.

Lemuel continued his theological studies, was licensed to preach in 1780 and was fully ordained to the ministry in 1785 – the first ordained black minister in the United States.  Over the course of the rest of his life, he pastored churches throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and New York.  Notably, his congregations were either mixed-race or all white, a unique circumstance for that day.  His churches experienced great growth during his tenure.

Lemuel wrote often, on topics theological as well as social.  He was the first African-American published in the United States, and eventually gained an international audience.  Probably his most significant social writing was an essay he wrote as a soldier, inspired by the Declaration of Independence, entitled “Liberty Further Extended.”  In it, he took from Acts 17:26, Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill, “…and He made from one [man], every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation” to demonstrate the equality of all races and point out the shortcoming of the Declaration in not extending that same freedom to existing slaves and indentured servants.  He favored an immediate emancipation rather than the gradual emancipation many of the Founders envisioned.  He pointed out clearly and boldly that slavery was sin, and he pointed out the irony of slaveowners fighting for liberty while denying it to others.

Theologically, he gained great respect when, unknown to him until the last minute, a prominent Universalist preacher was invited to his church to speak.  After a lengthy sermon attempting to demonstrate that salvation was universal (i.e. a loving God wouldn’t condemn anyone to Hell), Lemuel was asked if he wanted to respond.  He stood up and, with no notes or preparation, gave a sermon of his own entitled “Universal Salvation – An Ancient False Doctrine”.  He articulated clearly through the Scriptures and plain logic, without disparaging the previous speaker or even mentioning him by name, the Biblical doctrine of salvation.  Wonderful tact!

Reverend Haynes married a white school teacher named Elizabeth Babbitt.  The couple had ten children, and surviving letters between the siblings speak glowingly of their father and memories of family devotions and prayer.

Lemuel Haynes passed into Glory in 1833, at age 80, in his Congregationalist church in South Granville, New York.  He composed his own epitaph: “Here lies the dust of a poor hell-deserving sinner who ventured into eternity trusting wholly on the merits of Christ for salvation.  In the full belief of the great doctrines he preached while on earth, he invites his children, and all who read this, to trust their eternal interest in the same foundation.”

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuel_Haynes

https://wallbuilders.com/lemuel-haynes/#

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/haynes-lemuel-1753-1833/

https://thefoundingproject.com/lemuel-haynes-african-american-founder/

https://revivedthoughts.com/lemuel-haynes-universal-salvation-an-ancient-false-doctrine/

https://www.facebook.com/museumoftheBible/photos/a.656534441128184/2710890175692590/

 

 

Nathan Bedford Forrest: Sinner to Saint

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Can God forgive anyone?  Is there any sinner beyond His reach?  Nathan Bedford Forrest has a notorious reputation, much of it earned fairly, some of it unfairly.  “Bedford,” as he was called, was born in 1821, a twin with a sister, the two of them being the oldest of eight children.  His stubborn nature reared itself early in his life where he was a known fighter and brawler, exhibiting a fierce determination for personal success and a self-imposed code of ethics he impatiently expected others to follow.  As a young man, his personal life was one of seeming moral contradictions: he gambled, brawled, and swore, but never touched alcohol, treated ladies with the utmost respect, and, though he called it “a religion for women,” he had the utmost respect for the Christian faith and Christian ministers.  In a surviving letter to his son from late in the war, Forrest strongly implored his son to follow the example of his godly mother rather than his own sinful example.

When he left home, he tried a few lines of work before his found his fortune in two fields: agriculture and slave-trading.  By the time the Civil War began in 1861, Forrest owned plantations and slaves cumulatively worth an estimated 1.5 million dollars.  He was, by all worldly measures, a fantastic provider for his family.

When the Civil War began, the forty-year-old Forrest joined the Tennessee Mounted Rifles along with his brother and fifteen-year-old son.  Bedford enlisted as a Private, but his aggressiveness and leadership abilities soon earned him a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.  Eventually rising to the rank of three-star General, Bedford was the fastest-climbing officer of the war on either side.  With his calvary unit ready in personnel, and too impatient to wait on the government for supplies, Forrest rode into Union-controlled Kentucky and personally paid to outfit his entire regiment with horses, saddles, and guns.  A great story can be read about his efforts to smuggle those goods out of Kentucky.

Forrest was engaged numerous times during the war, and earned the nickname “That Devil Forrest” from Gen. William T. Sherman, who promised a General’s commission to any person who could assassinate Forrest.  Despite having no formal military education, he displayed an aptitude for military strategy that makes his tactics a topic of study even to this day.  He led numerous Calvary charges and raids, often times against superior numbers.  He personally led his men into hand-to-hand combat numerous times, having at least thirty confirmed kills in close quarters.  Despite his reputation among the Union as a savage, Forrest sought regular counsel among his chaplains, who had almost as much influence on his later conversion as did his devout Presbyterian wife.

At the end of the war, Forrest disbanded his unit and sought whole-heartedly to do his part to mend the fences between North and South.  He is often mistakenly identified as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.  He did demonstrate a level of involvement for a couple of years, and the then-decentralized Klan seized on his name recognition to incentivize recruitment.  The Klan grew more and more radical in its intimidation tactics, both against blacks and white carpetbaggers, and by 1868, Forrest had written a letter publicly denouncing the Klan and encouraging its disbanding.  Sadly, it had little effect.  Forrest went to his grave saying he never publicly approved of the violence and intimidation tactics the Klan soon came to be well-known for.

Post-war prosperity did not come to Bedford Forrest as easily as it had before the war.  He tried selling bonds and insurance, he tried his hand at being a railroad executive, and tried to go back into agriculture.  All ventures met with limited success or outright failure.

Bedford Forrest had a godly mother who prayed for him and his salvation her entire life.  Bedford’s wife Mary Ann was a devout Christian who patiently endured her husband’s bouts of temper and propensity to gamble, while interceding to God constantly on his behalf.  Numerous other Godly men crossed his path, especially during the war, who planted the seeds of faith in his heart.  On November 14, 1875, Bedford accompanied his wife to church and listened to the pastor preach a sermon on Matthew Chapter 7, the Parable of the Builders.  After the sermon, an uncharacteristically tearful Bedford Forrest approached the pastor and said, “Sir, your sermon has removed the last prop from under me.  I am the fool that built on the sand; I am a poor, miserable sinner.”

The Pastor instructed him to read Psalm 51, the Psalm of the repentant sinner, that evening and promised to call on him the next day.  The following day, they discussed the sermon and the Psalm, and Bedford Forrest bowed his head and prayed with his pastor.  After praying, the former general said, “All is right, I have put my trust in my Redeemer.”

Forrest still struggled with his temper from time to time, partially aggravated by his deteriorating health.  One recounted incident involves him exploding with anger at a tailor who accidentally allowed one of his garments to become moth-eaten.  Even though the tailor promised to make full restitution, Forrest pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the poor man’s head before leaving in a rage.  The following day, he returned, broken, to ask forgiveness.  Such an act of contrition would have been unthinkable in the violent-tempered Forrest of the Civil War, and shows the change God was continuing to work in his heart.

An overlooked, but very significant event happened in 1875, near the time of his conversion.  Bedford Forrest was asked to speak to a Civil Rights group in Memphis called the Pole-Bearers Association (a fore-runner to the NAACP), the first white man invited to speak to a civil rights group.  The full speech is short, but powerful and well before its time in terms of race relations.  As he rose to speak, he accepted a bouquet of flowers from a young black girl named Lou Lewis.  Some excerpts from his speech:

“…I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states…I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong.  I believe I can…assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to elevate every man and depress none.

 “I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you…When I can serve you, I will do so.  We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together.  We may differ in color, but not in sentiment…I am with you in heart and in hand.” 

Astoundingly, to an onlooker of the day, the former racist, slave trader and decorated Confederate General then leaned down and gently kissed Miss Lewis on the cheek, an unheard-of sentiment in that day.  He was roundly ridiculed for it, but defended his actions as stoutly as he defended any other action he took throughout the course of his life.

Nathan Bedford Forrest is a man of contradictions, a villain turned saint.  While his legacy continues to remain a source of debate on our national stage, he remains proof positive that while his sins were many, God’s grace was enough for even him.  He died in late 1877 at the young age of 56, with his last thoughts and words directed to his beloved Mary Ann.  At his funeral, people of all races lined the streets of Memphis to mourn him.

It is interesting to note that Bedford’s great-grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest III, served in the US Army as a Brigadier General aviator and was killed in action in Germany in 1943.  His body is buried in Arlington Cemetery, the last male descendant of the great Confederate general.

Kastler, Shane E., Nathan Bedford Forrest's Redemption, Pelican Books, 2010.

http://www.tennessee-scv.org/ForrestHistSociety/forrest_speech.html

 

 

Henry Aaron

Henry Aaron

Forty-six years ago, on April 8^th, 1974, Henry Louis Aaron hit his 715^th Major League home run in his home stadium in Atlanta, officially beating the long-standing record set years before by Babe Ruth.  He finished the 1973 season one run shy of tying the record, actually tied the record on the road in the team’s first series of the season against the Cincinnati Reds, then hit number 715 at home against LA Dodgers pitcher Al Downing in the fourth inning.  ‘Hank’ went on to retire in 1975 with a total of 755 home runs, a record that stood until Barry Bonds beat it in 2007.

Henry Aaron was born in 1934 to a boilermaker’s helper in a ship-building company, one of six children.  He described his childhood as strict – with childhood chores and Sunday attendance at the local Baptist church as an absolute must.  His father worked hard and didn’t often have time to spend with his family, but when he did, he tried to make certain it was meaningful.

As a young teenager, already a noted baseball talent, Henry skipped school one day to go to a pool hall where he knew he could listen to a baseball game featuring his hero, Jackie Robinson.  For some reason, his father had been let off work early and happened to walk by the establishment and saw him.  Saying nothing, dad beckoned him with his finger and they walked home together.  Instead of punishing him, he spent the afternoon speaking with Henry.  Henry voiced his desire to drop out of school and take up baseball.  He remembers his father saying, “Son, I quit school because I had to…you don’t have to.  I put fifty cents on that dresser every morning for you to take to school to buy your lunch and whatever else you need.  I only take twenty-five cents to work with me.  It’s worth more to me that you get an education that it is for me to eat.  So, let’s hear no more about dropping out of school.”

At age 17, in 1951, Henry was offered $200 a month to play for an all-black team called the Indianapolis Clowns.  He had to promise his parents that he would continue his education later (a promise he kept) before they consented.  He was placed on a bus with two dollars, two sandwiches, and two extra pairs of pants to Charlotte, NC, where his new team was conducting spring training.  He roomed with a tall, lanky pitcher named Jenkins who shared Henry’s faith and served as an example and mentor for the younger Henry.  He noticed in Jenkins the same kind of self-sacrifice he had seen in his father, observing the lack of waste and watching his roommate put one of the two dollars he got for his daily food allowance and putting it into an envelope to mail to his wife.

Henry followed closely the career of his hero, Jackie Robinson.  It fascinated him that Jackie dealt with so much and kept his cool during it all.  Dealing with overt racism throughout his career, he leaned on Robinson’s example.  Reading about him, Henry learned the secret of Jackie’s self-control: prayer.  Henry wrote about him, “I learned that he prayed a lot for help, and he also had a sense of destiny about what he was doing, so much so that he felt God’s presence with him.  He learned to put aside his pride and quick temper for the bigger thing he was doing.”  From Jackie Robinson, Henry learned the quiet strength of humility.  Henry remarked once, “The best way to lick this racial thing is to play well.  Play so well that the fans forget your color.” 

As a result of his play with the Indianapolis Clowns, Henry received two offers to play for Major League teams, the New York Giants and the Milwaukee Braves.  The Braves offered fifty dollars a month more, and he later remarked that fifty dollars was the only thing that kept him from being teammates with Willie Mays.

Henry faced much overt racism during his career.  He remembered eating at a restaurant in Washington DC while playing with the Indianapolis Clowns and hearing the staff literally breaking the plates in the back rather than reuse them.  While on the Braves’ farm team, he was one of three black players.  The white players stayed in hotels when they traveled, the three black players had to find their own lodging, often staying in private homes.  He faced heckling and hate mail.  While still in the minor leagues, one sports writer noted, “Aaron led the league in everything but hotel accommodations.”

At the end of the 1973 season, when he was one home run shy of tying Babe Ruth’s record, Aaron received a plaque from the US Postal Service for receiving more mail than any person not holding public office in the country – over 930,000 pieces of mail that year.  The Braves had to hire a secretary to sort the fan mail, which was forwarded to Aaron, from the hate mail and death threats, which were forwarded to the FBI.  Aaron was confident he would beat the record the following season, but was privately worried he might not live to get there.  The editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quietly had an obituary drafted in the event it was needed.

After his baseball career, including his last two years playing for the Milwaukee Brewers, Henry returned to Atlanta to accept a senior management position with the Braves.  At age 86 today, he continues to serve in that capacity in a limited sense, but devotes much more time to charitable work, having established a foundation to provide scholarships and grants to historically black colleges and universities.  One of many examples is called the “4 for 4 Scholarship Program”, which provides $4,000 a year for four years for twelve students.  Why those numbers?  Twelve times in his career, Henry went 4-for-4 (four hits in four at-bats) in a single game.

Henry Aaron was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, the first year of eligibility.  He received a higher percentage of votes for inclusion than any other person, with the exception of Ty Cobb.  His number, 44, was retired by the Atlanta Braves in 1977 and also by the Brewers.  He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 by President George W. Bush.  He has been the recipient of numerous other accolades, both for his achievements in baseball and for his philanthropic work.

Henry Aaron’s accomplishments and noted humility, as well as his remarkable dedication to service and sacrifice, were first modeled by his father, then his baseball roommate and mentor, Jenkins, and then by his hero, Jackie Robinson.  In reflecting on his career, he remarked, “I need to depend on Someone who is bigger, stronger and wiser than I am.  I don’t do it on my own strength.  He gave me a good body and some talent and the freedom to develop it.  He helps me when things go wrong.  He forgives me when I fall on my face.  He lights the way.”

https://www.guideposts.org/better-living/entertainment/sports/hank-aaron-god-is-his-strength

https://nypost.com/2020/04/08/hank-aaron-puts-historic-hr-he-hit-46-years-ago-in-perspective/

https://theundefeated.com/features/hank-aaron-remembered-for-more-than-home-runs/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Aaron#cite_note-greatath-7

Catherine of Siena

 

Catherine of Siena

Two monumental things happened in Italy in the year 1347.  First, in the port of Messina, a ship docked – likely from somewhere in the Middle East.  A black rat slipped off that ship, unnoticed.  On the back of that rat was a single flea, carrying a disease Epidemiologists today call Yersinia Pestis – in that day they simply called it the Black Plague.  The Plague swept through the Western world in successive waves, ultimately killing more than one-third of the population between Iceland and India.

Second, a child named Catherine was born in Siena – the twenty-third of twenty-five children in a wool-dyers family.  She had committed herself to a life of fasting and prayer by age seven, having claimed to receive a vision of Christ at that early age.  She was intrigued by the great scholars and early church fathers of the Christian faith and studied them devoutly.  At age sixteen, she was pressured by her parents to marry – but hoping to enter the Lord’s service, she cut her hair very short to ward off potential suitors.

As a teen, she joined a Dominican organization which allowed for her to live at home, while serving the Lord and adhering to the disciplines of the Order.  She spent three years wrestling with God, her own flesh, and God’s call on her life.  At the end of those three years, she was awakened to the needs of the world outside – a world mired in worry over the recurring Plague, corruption and uncertainty within the Church, and general malaise and despair.  She and a number of her followers devoted themselves to the ministry amidst the Plague.  While others would flee, they would stay and tend the sick – at great risk to themselves.  She wrote of having to learn to deal with the nausea from the stench of hospitals overcrowded with the dead and dying, and forcing herself to stay in that environment until the Holy Spirit had conquered what she considered the ‘rebellion of her flesh’ in her nausea.  Hers was an exemplary life of selfless and untiring service.  One author wrote that Catherine was unconcerned about making a mark as a “woman in ministry” and was more concerned with Jesus’ call for her to be a “woman who ministers.”

Catherine’s intelligence and grasp of the world situation is remarkable for any person of her day – as was her moral courage.  At the time, due to fears from the Plague and political machinations, the Pope had moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, France.   The French political and moral influence had very negative impacts on the church and had even mired the Papacy itself in immorality and corruption.  Catherine began an extensive letter-writing campaign calling sinners to repentance, calling for the reform of the Church, and calling for Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome.  She wrote to the Pope personally:

“Be manly and not fearful.  Answer God who is calling you…Restore to the Holy Church the heart of burning charity which she has lost: she is all pale because iniquitous men have drained her blood.  Come, Father!”

Within a year of her writing the letter, Gregory returned the Papacy to Rome.  Over 400 of Catherine’s letters and other writings exist today.  She asks hard questions others would not ask, and often answers them herself.  Hers was a huge voice, calling the church to reform – while at the same time fostering reconciliation and calling Christians to service.  Using skills of natural diplomacy, she acted as a mediator between the Italian city-states, and even helped raise an army for one of the Crusades.

At the heart of Catherine’s teachings was a vision of Jesus, bleeding on the Cross.  It wasn’t nails or the cross that held him there, it was love.  She taught that from the cross, you could see the heart of God, his unqualified and unspeakable love for all mankind.

Catherine died in Rome at the young age of 33, having exhausted herself in ministry.  Roman Catholicism has given her the title “Doctor of the Church” – an honor given to only 36 people in history.  She shares that honor with people like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.  More than that, though, she leaves behind the incredible example of a courageous person completely devoted to her Lord in the midst of a chaotic, complicated, and distressed world.

Packer, J.I., 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, Broadman and Holman Publishing, 2000.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-94/catherine-siena-epidemics-christians-divided.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Catherine-of-Siena

https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/pandemics-and-public-worship-throughout-history

 

Frances Ridley Havergal

The Consecration Hymnist

Frances Ridley Havergal was born in Worcestershire, England, in 1836.  Her father, an Anglican minister, enrolled her in a Christian school where she received Christ at age 6.  She was highly intelligent, mastering numerous languages including German, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.  She found her love of the arts to be the way which she supported herself, publishing many volumes of poetry, composing music, and she was in great demand as a pianist and singer.  Frances loved Christ, and was very active in the Church Missionary Society – raising funds to support missions work around the world.

Frances kept very busy with writing and singing.  She turned down numerous proposals of marriage.  She loved one man very deeply, but he was not a believer and she called off the relationship in obedience to her Lord.  She is also the author of many hymns, including ‘Take My Life,’ ‘I Gave My Life for Thee,’ ‘Like a River Glorious,’ and ‘Who is on the Lord’s Side?’

An Advent Sunday, December 2, 1873, Frances received a little book entitled “All For Jesus.”  The book explained how every corner and room of a person’s life should be consecrated to Jesus.  The book moved her deeply, and the young woman re-committed her life to her Savior, resolving to commit her entire self to Christ.  This was a very significant moment of her life, one she called her “Consecration.”

Soon after this consecration, Frances had occasion to share a boarding house with ten people for a few days – some of whom were not saved, and the others not fully surrendered to Christ.  Frances prayed, asking God to give her “all in the house.”  She witnessed and, after the few days of boarding, she had the joy of seeing every person leave as Christians, fully yielded to Christ.  That last night of her visit, Frances was so excited she couldn’t sleep and instead wrote this hymn:

Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord to Thee.

Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Thy love, At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing Always, only, for my King.  Always, only, for my King.

Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages for Thee.

Take my silver and my gold; Not a mite would I withhold.  Not a mite would I withhold.

Take my love, my God I pour At thy feet its treasure store.

Take myself and I will be Ever only, all for Thee.  Ever only, all for thee.

Frances made a habit, every December 2^nd, the anniversary of her consecration, to revisit this hymn in her devotional time.  On one occasion, she pondered the words, ‘Take my voice and let me sing, always, only, for my King.’  She sang frequently, including with the London Philharmonic, but from that moment on, she only sang for Christ.  On another occasion, she prayed over the words ‘Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold.’  Over the years, she had accumulated a fair bit of jewelry, but she felt very convicted that those pieces, too, should go to her Savior.  She packed a box with all her jewelry and mailed it along with an expensive jewelry cabinet to her beloved Church Missionary Society, saving for herself only a brooch that belonged to her parents and a small locket with a picture of a niece who had passed away at a young age.  Writing to a friend, she said about this, “I had no idea I had such a jeweler’s shop; nearly fifty articles are being packed off.  I don’t think I need to tell you I never packed a box with such pleasure.”

Frances passed away unexpectedly in 1879, at the young age of 42 – a shining example of a consecrated life.  Her poetry continued to be published for over 30 years after her death, selling over 4 million volumes.  Many of her hymns continue to be published in many languages to this day.

Morgan, Robert J., Then Sings My Soul, Nelson Publishers, 2003.

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/frances-havergal-wrote-take-my-life-and-let-it-be-11630571.html

https://www.havergaltrust.com/about-f-r-h/2/

R.G. LeTourneau, Mover of Men and Mountains

Robert Gilmore “R.G.” LeTourneau was born in 1888 to godly parents.  In his autobiography, he confesses that as a youth he was “fanatically determined to amount to nothing” – and came to Christ only in his later teen years.  He dropped out of school in the 8^th grade to take a job hauling sand for a foundry.  He took an interest in machines and how they worked, doing his best to dabble in the machines at the foundry.  During this time as a young man, he stumbled across a syllabus and text for a course in mechanics from the International Correspondence School.  He didn’t take the tests and he didn’t pay for the credits, but something stuck and he continued to dabble in mechanics. 

At age 21 he designed a “final exam” for himself.  With no formal education, he disassembled and reassembled a motorcycle within a day.  He declared he had a “Bachelor of Motorcycles” degree, a title he used off-and-on the rest of his life.

After a brief stint in the Navy during World War I, he bounced around looking for work.  By age 30, then married and in debt due to a failed business venture, he took a temporary job fixing a farmer’s tractor.  To prove it worked, he used the tractor to level part of the farmer’s field.  RG later said that this was the most satisfying job he ever had. 

R.G. began to get serious about his faith, and had a long conversation with his pastor, asking about potential avenues to go into pastoral or missionary work.  His pastor responded to him with the words, “R.G., God needs businessmen as well as pastors.”  This conversation set the direction for the rest of his life, declaring that his business partner was God.

R.G. took the experience with leveling the farmer’s field that he financed a similar tractor for himself and founded R.G. LeTourneau Inc., an earth-moving company.  He struggled with work throughout the 1920s, trying his best to underbid competing companies then inventing machines to move the earth more efficiently.  He found himself deep in debt from a couple of failed contracts and ended up having to sell a few of his machines to make ends meet.  R.G.’s debtors hired a man named Mr Frost to go over his books and help him get his books back on track and get to a state of profitability.  Frost arrived to a situation that, to his mind, was worse than he had thought.  Due to his faith, R.G. refused to work on Sundays, and was committed to meet a missions pledge of $5,000 to his church.  To Frost’s amazement, God brought in just enough business for R.G. to meet his commitments, though still in debt.

R.G. considered himself to be, first and foremost in the business of moving earth, but his creditors convinced him that instead of rolling the dice on large construction jobs that he’d be better suited for manufacturing and selling the unique machines he had invented.  This proved to be the best business move he could have made – he went from being indebted and near bankruptcy during the 1920s to tremendous profitability during the Great Depression.  His company and his machines were instrumental in the building of the Boulder Highway, the Hoover dam, the Orange County Dam, and other high-profile Depression-era infrastructure projects under the New Deal.  By 1938, his company was netting nearly a million and a half dollars in profit.

R.G.’s incredible imagination developed many of the earth-moving machines we know of today, from the bulldozer to the rubber tire to the electric wheel.  Other inventions included scrapers, mobile sea platforms for oil exploration and drilling in the deep ocean, dredgers, portable cranes, bridge spans, dump trucks, and logging equipment.  Many of these machines are unchanged in design to this day.  He developed various types of welding different types of metals in different circumstances.  During the second World War, R.G.’s factories produced 70% of all the earth-moving equipment used by the Allies during the war.  In all, he held 299 patents.

R.G. and his wife Evelyn held to the principle, as they put it, of “It’s not how much of my money I give to God, it’s how much of God’s money I keep for myself.”  They practiced what they called “reverse tithing” – giving 90% of their income to the work of the Lord and keeping 10% for themselves.  R.G. and Evelyn, as well as their six children, were very active in missions and charitable work.  They set up Christian missions in Liberia and in Peru, and used their Foundation to funnel tens of millions of dollars to Christian missions and ministries throughout the world.  They also established LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, still a highly-regarded Faith-based technical school, on the site of an about-to-be-demolished Army hospital.

Sixty years after poring over that International Correspondence School syllabus, that same school gave the 8^th grade dropout an honorary Doctorate, one of five such honors he received in his lifetime.  R.G. LeTourneau passed away in 1969.  His autobiography, Mover of Men and Mountains, is still in print.

https://www.letu.edu/library/rg-museum.html#ContentBlock-1-3

http://www.giantsforgod.com/rg-letourneau/

https://centerforfaithandwork.com/article/who-was-rg-letourneau

https://thebestschools.org/magazine/rg-letourneau/